


Licorice and Marshmallow Root Tea

by gray_autumn_sky



Series: Lazy Saturday [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 08:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9597197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gray_autumn_sky/pseuds/gray_autumn_sky
Summary: Henry is sick and Regina has to work, leaving Mal to care for Henry.





	

It was rare that Regina worked on Saturdays; but months before, a meeting had been cancelled at the last minute, and she’d randomly selected a day—a day that happened to be a Saturday morning in early spring. At the time, it’d been ideal—a likely beautiful day would lead to low attendance and would likely mean that she’d be home well before lunch.

But that was before the water main break three days before and that was before the freakishly low temperatures that had turned Main Street into an ice-skating rink—and it was long before Henry had come down with a nagging cold.

Regina sighs as she looks over at him—his eyes were sunken in, his nose was red, and his breathing was ragged; for two days he’d been carrying with him a box of tissues, and she couldn’t remember the last time he was this sick. “I don’t have to go,” she murmurs as she pours a glass of orange juice for him. “I could stay home with you. I don’t have to go.”

“I’m fourteen, Mom,” he tells her with a sigh—barely able to muster the energy to roll his eyes. “You don’t have to stay at home because I’m sick.” She pushes the glass toward him and nods toward it; but his face scrunches and he shakes his head. “It hurts to drink.”

“It’s good for you,” she says, her voice insistent as she pushes the orange juice closer. “Drink up.”

“It burns.”

Regina sighs and her eyebrow arches in his direction as Mal comes into the kitchen—and immediately, she frowns at the sight of Regina’s suit, a reminder that she’ll be working for most of the day.  “What burns?” She asks, looking between them as her eyes fall to the glass at Henry’s finger tips.

“The orange juice,” Henry says as he pushes it away. “Mom wants me to drink it.”

“Vitamin C is…”

“She makes me drink things when I’m sick, too,” Mal says, as she leans against the counter. “At least she’s not making you drink cod liver oil.”

Henry’s eyes widen and he sniffles, batting his hand over his nose. “Ew, really?”

“Really,” Mal says with a nod—either confirming that Regina really did force her to drink a spoon full of fish oil the last time she was ill or confirming its grossness, or both, most likely.

Regina’s eyes roll as she looks between them, “Says the woman who once hunted and ate raw fish in a former life.”

A smirk forms over her lips as Mal’s eyes widen and a small laugh that turns to a cough escapes her son. “I was a dragon,” Mal replies, her voice defensive as her shoulders square, “So that was different.”

Shaking her head, Regina leans in and kisses Mal’s cheek—and then, she presses a quick kiss to Henry’s warm forehead. “I hate leaving you,” she sighs as she pulls back. “You feel feverish. You should go back to bed,” she tells him as a soft grin stretches over her lips, “After you drink the orange juice.” Henry sighs and his shoulders slump forward as he reaches for the glass, and then she turns back to Mal. “Make sure he…”

“I know,” Mal cuts in as a soft grin forms over his lips. “Lots of fluids, lots of rest.”

“And lots of orange juice.”

“And lots of orange juice,” Mal repeats with a nod as she reaches out and squeezes Regina’s hand. “I think I can hold down the fort for a couple of hours.”

“My meeting might go late though and…”

“And I can handle it.”

With a sigh Regina nods, leaning in and kissing her quickly before she says her goodbyes and hurries out the door. As soon as the front door closes, Mal pulls the glass of orange juice away from Henry and a smile stretches onto her lips. “If it burns, you don’t have to drink it.”

“Do you think it’ll help though?”

“Maybe,” Mal concedes with a nod. “You’re mother is rarely wrong, but that’s definitely not the only thing that’ll help.” Henry’s eyebrows arch and Mal’s smile brightens as she nods toward the living room. “There are some blankets on the couch that I just took out of the dryer, why don’t you go curl up and… pick out a movie, or something.”

“Okay,” Henry says with an easy nod as he slides off the stool at the counter, taking his box of tissues with him.

Mal reaches for a sauce pan and fills it with water, then turns on the stove—something she’s finally mastered—and then she turns to the cabinet, reaching for a little basket on the top shelf. She sifts through little bags and jars until she finds a marshmallow root and a licorice root, and when the water begins to bubble, she drops them in and watches them boil. Finally, when the tea is ready, she pours it into a mug, stirring in a little dash of cayenne pepper.

Carefully, she carries the tea into the living room, where she finds Henry cocooned in blankets. His brow furrows as he looks to his box of tissues, sitting just out of his reach—and in that brief moment, he reminds her so much of Regina. “Here,” she murmurs, sliding the tissues toward him before extending the mug of hot tea. “This won’t burn.”

Sniffing, Henry plucks one of the tissues from the box as he looks skeptically at the tea. “What… is it?”

“Tea.”

“What kind of tea?”

“Herbal.”

“That’s… not very informative.”

Mal grins. “Licorice and marshmallow root.”

Henry blinks and sniffles again. “Those don’t sound like real things.”

“They are,” Mal says with a short laugh. “It’s a centuries old remedy for a cold.” She shrugs. “I may not know how to make coffee or fry an egg or run the dishwasher, but I can boil root teas with the best of ‘em.”

Grimacing as he swallows, Henry looks down into the mug. “What does it… taste like?”

“A bit like the candy, but… a little more on the bitter side,” she tells him. “That’s why I combined it with the marshmallow root. That’ll sweeten it up.”

“I… like marshmallows,” Henry says, chewing at his lip for a moment before tentatively, brining the mug up and taking a soft sip—and then a triumphant grin stretches over Mal’s lips as his eyebrows draw up and he takes a longer sip. “That’s… not bad, actually.”

“No burning?”

“No burning,” he says with a nod and a little laugh. “It’s… different, but it’s good.”

Henry takes another sip and burrows back into the blankets—and for a brief moment, she’s not sure what to do and it strikes her that this is the first the first time that she and Henry have ever really been alone. “Do you… need anything else?” She asks in a tentative voice, not really sure of how much help she’d be.

“Can we watch a movie?”

“Oh, yeah,” she nods, her voice sliding from tentative to unsure. “Um, of course.”

“Don’t worry,” Henry says with a little laugh. “Winter Soldier’s already in the DVD player.”

Mal only blinks. “Am I supposed to know what that is?” Henry laughs a little, clearing his throat  a little as a cough rattles in his chest. “More tea,” she tells him.

He nods and takes a long sip, then reaches for the remote. “Winter Solider is a Captain America movie… and… uh, it plays in the DVD player.”

Again, all Mal can do is blink. “Oh…”

Shaking his head, Henry sighs. “I have so much to teach you.”

Mal feels a fluttering in her chest as a smile twists onto her lips. “Does… that mean you want me to watch it with you?”

“Yeah,” Henry says with a little nod, seemingly taken aback by her question—as if her watching the movie with him had always been implied. “I mean, you did give me this awesome tea.”

“You really like it?”

Henry nods and takes another sip, then offers her one of the still-folded blankets as he edges over to make more room on the couch. He presses play on the menu and just before the movie begins, he looks over at her. “You know, you’re pretty good at the mom thing,” he says, taking another long sip of tea as they both settle back to watch the movie.


End file.
